Embrace the Mess

“The messiness of experience, that may be what we mean by life.” Daniel J. Boorstin

Joe Madden and Don Ritchie; "c'est du vent" means "it's all hot air"

“Embrace the mess”sounds like a gimmicky motto thought up by Chicago Cubs manager Joe Madden, whose motivational sayings include “Try not to suck”and “Do simple better.” Two articles on pedagogy in the current Oral History Review (OHR)are titled “Embracing the Mess,” one about “Conflict Studies Classrooms” and the other on “Untidy Oral History.”  Both take a postmodernist approach, regard uncertainty of validation as a given, and discuss such concepts as deconstruction, dialogic relationships, indeterminacy, and intersubjectivity. Methinks these scholars created an unnecessary messiness themselves. I’m so grateful for fellow Marylander Don Ritchie’s “Doing Oral History,” which advocates plunging in armed only with a few practical words of advice and leaving the analysis until later.“

I am one of countless oral historians who have benefitted from Alessandro Portelli’s sage insights and example.  In “Biography of an Industrial Town: Terni, Italy, 1831-2014” (2017), now available in English, he distinguishes between memory and imagination and regards his craft as a creative endeavor.  His “symphony” of working-class voices (in the words of OHRcontributor William Burns) weaves a narrative similar to many post-industrial towns and cities. In “They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History” (2011) Portelli wrote:

  I have always admired the way in which people fight back under great odds and survive, especially in the United States, where one is not supposed to be up against impossible odds.  Harlan County [KY] does not display much pursuit of happiness.  But you see there the persistence of life in the face of danger and death.

  The handling of poisonous snakes in church is a test of faith and grace, just as catching them in one’s yard is a test of prowess and courage.  The deathly presence of the snake parallels the daily danger of the mines, and the culture takes a sort of ironic pride in its ability to handle it.  The snake is both something radically other and a household presence.

The most interesting article in the special OHR section on pedagogics, Leyla Neyzi’s “National Education Meets Critical Pedagogy: Teaching Oral History in Turkey,” views oral history as an alternative to “methodologically conservative nationalist history.”Neyzi’s mentor was folklorist and historian Arzu Öztürkmen of Bogazici University, who at the 1998 International Oral History Association (IOHA) conference in Rio de Janeiro presented a splendid paper entitled “The Irresistible Charm of the Interview.”  Phil and I danced with Öztürkmen at the U.S. Consulate’s gala for IOHA members.  I learned that the Turkish belly dance is similar to the Hawaiian hula except for the arm motion. 

Leyla Neyzi and Arzu Ozturkmen

In 2000, thanks in part to Öztürkmen, Bogazici University hosted the IOHA conference.  I was there when grandson James was born. In Istanbul I gave a talk about Inland Steel’s “Red Local” 1010 and the Steelworker’s Fight Back 1977 USWA election. One conference session was on the Armenian genocide during and after World war I resulted in the Turks extermination of approximately a million people.  When governmental officials threatened to prevent it, the IOHA threatened to hold the conference elsewhere.  An overflow audience included many people who were not IOHA members.  Neyzi wrote that this neglected episode in Turkish history illustrates “the silences and contradictions of public history”:

  When mentioned in history textbooks, Armenians tend to be referred to as “traitors” who were “relocated” during wartime for raison d’etat.  The prevalent view is that the (“so-called”) Armenian genocide is a myth Turkey’s internal and external “enemies” fabricated. Given that young people are raised with this public narrative (which masks an “open secret” only discussed in private), what are the implications of introducing the Armenian genocide as a historical event in the classroom, along with the memories of survivors as recorded by oral historians?”  

Neyzi broached this controversial subject in “’Wish They Hadn’t Left’: The Burden of Armenian Memory in Turkey,” a chapter in the 2010 book “Speaking to One Another: Personal Memories of the Past in Armenia and Turkey.”

Regal Beloit’s threat to move its Valpo operations to a plant in Monticello, Indiana, is shameful blackmail. All striking workers demand is a 75-cent hourly wage increase and health insurance not to exceed $15,000 a year. NWI Timescorrespondent Joseph S. Pete wrote: “The bearings manufacturing operation has a long history in Valparaiso and is even older than U.S. Steel's Gary Works. Regal Beloit, a multinational electric motors manufacturer, has only owned the former McGill Manufacturing Co. for five years.” Mayor Jon Costas released this statement:

  This decision would impact approximately 110 union workers and another 50-60 nonunion management positions. As a community, we are disappointed that Regal is considering shutting down this productive facility and urge them to reconsider this unfortunate option. 

Employees agreed to return to work while negotiations continue regarding the dispute and the company’s heartless position.

Anne Balay wrote:

Memories. Ten years ago today, at a faculty meet and greet, James Lane suggested to me that I do oral histories of gay steelworkers. I was telling him about my interest in blue collar queers, and he said this was an interesting and fun opportunity. I was an English professor with no background in ethnography or interviewing. I was an introvert. I never looked back and the people I know now because of that work are the greatest gift anyone could have.

Last October, in Montreal for an OHA conference session Anne Balay organized, I teared up at lunch with one of Anne’s Haverford students, Phil Reid, describing my suggestion that she interview LGBT steelworkers and how her department chair held that against her, preferring that Anne keep churning out largely unread children’s lit articles.

Ray Smock photographed the Milky Way near Spray, Oregon and wrote:

   The Milky Way this time of year dominates the sky from horizon to horizon. We had two nights of crystal-clear sky with stars so bright it was easy to see in total darkness. Spray, Oregon a town of 150 was six miles from our viewing site and blocked by a mountain. No light pollution!  We got lucky in the high desert with beautiful days and star filled nights. We went to a country store where we were the only ones not wearing camouflage. It was opening day for elk hunting for bow hunters.

On the second week of bowling I rolled a 473 (148-152-173) as the Electrical Engineers took two games and series by a mere 12 pins.  In the tenth frame of game three Ron Smith doubled, I struck and spared, setting the stage for 87-year-old Frank Shufran, our clean-up man, who needed to pick up a ten-pin, normally his nemesis, in order for us to prevail.  He nailed it and flashed four fingers, signifying the number of times he had converted it.  On an adjacent alley, 82-year-old Gene Clifford, a former Valpo H.S. bowling coach, rolled a 236 despite missing a couple spares.

Steve and Wanda Trafny

Historian John C. Trafny gave me a copy of his latest Arcadia “Images of America” volume, “Downtown Gary, Millrats, Politics, and US Steel,” co-authored by his sister Diane F. Trafny.  On the cover is a Calumet Regional Archives photo of a parade float provided by Gary Works passing the Lake Superior Court Building during the 1931 Gary Silver Jubilee celebration.The book includes several photos of the Trafny's parents, Steve, who saw action in the Pacific during World War II, and Wanda, a refugee from Poland.  In the introduction they paint a vivid picture of Gary’s downtown commercial district during its 30-year heyday beginning in the 1920s, which drew shoppers and pleasure seekers from throughout the Calumet Region despite stores being closed on Sundays prior to the 1950s except for gas stations and pharmacies:

 Shoppers were offered a host of stores. Large national chains like Sears, J.C. Penney, Florsheim, and S.S. Kresge Co., and Chicago-based stores like Goldblatt Bros. became popular with blue-collar families, especially those who wanted a good deal on furniture or appliances.  H. Gordon and Sons, which opened on Broadway in the early 1920s, became one of the area’s premier clothing stores.  Others included Pearson, a women’s clothing store, and Henry C. Lytton and Sons, menswear.  Baby boomers may recall Comay’s Jewelers with its record shop, Tom Olesker’s, W.T. Grant, and Robert Hall clothing on East Fifth Avenue.  No matter the store, sales associates asked shoppers, “May I help you?” 

  Along Fifth Avenue visitors could patronize Olsen Cadillac, Baker Chevrolet, and Baruch Olds. Bakeries such as Cake Box and Sno-White provided delicious baked goods. Slicks Laundry, the Blackstone, the Lighthouse, Walts, and Gary Camera were other businesses located along the street. In addition, there were plenty of taverns in the area.They included Parkway, Cozy Corner, Trainor’s, the Spitfire Lounge, the Ingot Inn, and a host of others.  On payday Mondays, the saloons did good business as steelworkers cashed checks there instead of the banks.  It was, after all, a steel town.

Ron Cohen treated Steve McShane and me to lunch at Captain’s House in Miller.  The main order of business was doing whatever necessary to hire Steve’s replacement before he retires in a year.  As Archives co-directors, Ron and I agreed to write Library dean Latrice Booker and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Vicki Roman-Lagunas to urge authorization so a search can commence.   Archives volunteer Maurice Yancy had brought me a copy of the Gary Crusaderthat contained an article about the third edition of “Gary: A Pictorial History.”  Ron told me that the Katie Hall Educational Foundation has been selling them at a brisk pace.

Rolling Stone National Editor Matt Taibbi’s article “Trump 2020: Be Very Afraid” compares the President to a “mad king” whom “most people would not leave alone with a decent wristwatch, let alone their children.”  Here’s a description of him at a rally in Cincinnati: “His hair has visibly yellowed since 2016.  It’s an amazing, unnatural color, like he was electrocuted in French’s mustard.  His neckless physique is likewise a wonder. He looks like he ate Nancy Pelosi.” He scolds Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for being disrespectful to “Nancy.”  Taibbi writes: 

 Nancy!  The lascivious familiarity with which Trump dropped her name must have stung like a tongue in Pelosi’s ear.  The Speaker, from that moment, was cornered.  A step forward meant welcoming the boils-and-all embrace of Donald Trump. A step back meant bitter intramural surrender and a likely trip to intersectionality re-education camp.

If “race, class, and gender” was once the politically correct historians’ Holy Trinity, “intersectionality” has become its unitarian synthesis. Coined by black feminist scholar Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, it’s the assertion that aspects of political and social discrimination overlap with gender.

 intersectionality

In “Chances Are” novelist Richard Russo introduced memorable minor characters such as closeted American History professor Tom Ford, who gave students the lone final exam question on the first day of class: “What caused the Civil War?” Michael, Sr., Mickey’s father, “like so many workingmen, always carried his money in a roll in his front pocket, no doubt comforted by the weight, the illusion of control you couldn’t get from a flimsy credit card.”A pipe fitter with a heart murmur that he neglected, one day he remained in the restaurant booth when his buddies got up to leave, his heart having beat for the final time.  When I told Gaard Logan that “Chances Are” was named for the 1957 Johnny Mathis song, she recalled that the brother of the African-American crooner (the secret heartthrob to many suburban young women I knew) was rumored to be a toll booth attendant in San Francisco when she moved there. 

Trapped

“I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock and the hard place
And I'm down on my luck”

         Warren Zevon, “Lawyers, Guns, and Money”

The dozen Thai boys trapped in a cave for two weeks with their assistant Wild Boars soccer coach are finally safe, rescued by a team of divers just ahead of monsoon rains that would have doomed the effort.  The New York Timesreported:

    It took an amalgam of muscle and brainpower from around the world: 10,000 people participated, including 2,000 soldiers, 200 divers and representatives from 100 government agencies. It took plastic cocoons, floating stretchers and a rope line that hoisted the players and coach over outcroppings. The boys had been stranded on a rocky perch more than a mile underground. Extracting them required long stretches underwater, in bone-chilling temperatures, and keeping them submerged for around 40 minutes at a time. The boys were even given anti-anxiety medication to avert panic attacks. “The most important piece of the rescue was good luck,” saidMaj. Gen. Chalongchai Chaiyakham, the deputy commander of the Third Army region, which helped the operation. “So many things could have gone wrong, but somehow we managed to get the boys out.”  

The ordeal in Thailand reminded me of the bizarre saga of Floyd Collins, trapped 55 feet underground in 1925 while exploring Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. The ensuing 18-day rescue effort took on a carnival atmosphere, attracting hordes of reporters and live radio coverage.   Vendors were hawking souvenirs and selling food to thousands of onlookers.  The episode ended in failure when the passage above Collins collapsed.  In Appalachian History Dave Tabler revealed that the explorer’s body became a tourist attraction:

    [It] was put in a glass-topped coffin in Crystal Cave where cavers from around the world paid their respects to Collins for many years. Then in the most dramatic and grotesque twist to the story, his body was stolen—and later found in a nearby field missing a leg. After this incident his body was placed in a chained casket.

    Eventually, the National Park Service absorbed Crystal Cave and closed it to the public. In 1989, Collins was properly buried in Mammoth Cave Baptist Church Cemetery on Flint Ridge. Today Floyd Collins’ final resting place has an extraordinary array of tokens on it — coins, sunflower seeds, stones, and other objects left by cave explorers and others for whom Floyd Collins was, and is, a legendary symbol.

In 2008 a Southern alternative metal band from Edmonton, Kentucky, Black Stone Cherry, recorded “The Ghost of Floyd Collins" with these lyrics:

Down in Mammoth Cave, is where his body laid
Walls came in life could not be saved
No man made machine could see the things he's seen
Mr. Collins, you did not die in vain

Strangers moved in, brought the circus to town
You know, there's people makin' money off a man underground
Somebody said they weren't doin' him right
That's why old Floyd's comin' back tonight

Stopping by the Archives was IU South Bend Folklore professor Anita Kay Westhues, who spoke at the IOHA conference in Jyvaskyla on “Beliefs and Practices Related to Community Water Sources: The Specialness of Springs.” She is interested in a  Gary artesian well located north of Ridge Road near Chase Street.  A few months ago, she accompanied Samuel A. Love on a Steel City Academy student field trip that included the site. I introduced Kay to John Trafny, who had heard of the Chase Street water source, which bubbles up from an aquifer. In January 2016 Post-Tribreporter Michelle Quinn wrote about efforts by Lake County Sheriff’s Department trusties to rid the area of garbage and debris dumped by the road, which has been closed for the past decade.  Quinn interviewed Miller resident Marion Patton, who claimed to have been drinking the water for at least a half-century.  He said: “The old men in the neighborhood told me about it, and I think it helped me.  It’s got a sweet taste to me.  Now, when you first get it, it may have a bit of a foul odor to it, but once it settles for a day, it’s my favorite.”

 

Chase St. Well cleanup; Post-Trib photos by Jim Karczewski

Little Calumet River Basin Commissioner David Castellanos, who helped arrange the cleanup, told Quinn: “I didn't even know it was out there.  It’s not part of the river basin, but a lot of people get water from there, and talked about the minerals from the water as being medicinal or that they couldn't afford to get bottled water. I've seen men out there fill up the back of their pickup truck with gallon jugs of water from there, and one time, I saw an older couple out there getting water. The man carried it up the road back to the car while the woman waited in the car.”

A section on Westhues’ website called “Chase St. Flowing Well, Gary” contains 

 over a dozen comments by longtime residents of Small Farms and other nearby communities. Jerry Baldwin recalled people lined up in the 1950s to obtain the water.  Silas G. Sconiers said, “It was the only source of fresh water we had living in unincorporated Lake County on the outskirts of Gary.” Sconiers no longer drinks from the spring because, in his opinion, dumping at Lake Sandy Jo, a 50-acre landfill, poisoned the water table and it now smells like rotten eggs.  Sharma Crenshaw recalled the liquid tasting great and being ice cold 40 years ago. Sharma added: “We never drank the tap water at home.  My grandmother made the trip every couple days with sterilized milk jugs or other containers.”  Nancy Cohen, who grew up in Gary’s Edison district, recalled often seeing people getting water from that source.

I had a mediocre night at bridge. Typical was a hand where partner Dee opened a Diamond and Dottie Hart overcalled a Spade.  Holding Ace, King, Queen, spot of Spades, four Clubs to the Queen, three small Diamonds, and Jack spot of Hearts, I bid one No-Trump (in retrospect, I probably should have doubled).  After Dee rebid Diamonds, I jumped to 3 No-Trump, figuring we had adequate points for game but might not have enough for 5 Diamonds.  I expected Dottie’s partner to lead a Spade, only he was void in that suit. What he had were 6 Hearts, while Dee only had a singleton in that suit and we lost the first six tricks.  Two couples who ended in 5 Diamonds also got set but only down one, not two like me for -100. Cracker, my favorite band, is kicking off a Thursday evening concert series in Valpo. I told bridge opponent Terry Brendel about it, but he didn’t seem to have heard of their big hits “Low” and “Teen Angst.”

photos of Roger Miramontes by Kris Steele

Kris Steele interviewed Rodrigo (Roger) Miramontes, a 2008 Hammond Clark graduate, and spent a few hours watching him bowl. Beforehand, she discovered that bowling in one form or another has been around for thousands of years.  In America rules began to be codified about a hundred years ago, such as that balls should weigh no more than 16 pounds.  Kris wrote:

    Roger married his high school sweetheart and they have three children. Roger works at Midwestern Steel in Hammond as a fabricator and bowls in two leagues at Olympia Lanes in North Hammond.  He often takes his children with him to teach them how to bowl. He started bowling at age eight, thanks to his uncles. His team name is Four Loco’s, and he carries an average of 190.  Roger bowled his best game last year, a 276. Roger uses a few different balls, but his favorite is a 14-pounder called the Hammer. He bowls with a right-handed hook that moves down the lane very quickly. 

Croatia defeated England, 2-1, and will face France in the World Cup final.  Down a goal at halftime, the underdog Croatians went ahead during extra time when Mario Mandzukic scored the game winner. AP reporter Donald Blum wrote: “Football will not be coming home to England, and there will be no title to match the 1966 triumph at Wembley Stadium. Harry Kane & Co. will deal with the same disappointment that felled Shearer and Platt, Gazza and Wazza, Beckham and Gerrard.”  Great Britain’s best player a half-century ago, George Best, who played for Manchester United for 11 years beginning in 1963, competed for Northern Ireland in international competition rather than England.  Thirty years later, David Beckham had an equally acclaimed 11-year career with Manchester United but an undistinguished World Cup career.  In a New Yorker article entitled “Goal-Oriented,” Leo Robson wrote that during the Middle Ages English monarchs had sought unsuccessfully to ban games because they often led to violence between villages.  

In Richard Russo’s “Bridge of Sighs” Lou Lynch ruminates on writing his autobiography, despite having lived an outwardly undistinguished life: “I’ve written far more than I expected to, having underestimated the tug of the past, the intoxication of memory, the attraction of explaining myself to, well, myself.”

 photo by Chris Daly

Johnny Hickman; photo by Lorraine Shearer

Cracker fans Lorraine, Jinbo, Marianne, Missy

Performing at Valpo’s Central Park amphitheater, Cracker was in great form and played an awesome 90-minute set, beginning with “King of Bakersfield.”  Performing with David Lowery and Johnny Hickman were a keyboardist and fiddle player in addition to a drummer and bass guitarist. I ran into Cracker fans Lorraine Shearer and Marianne and Missy Brush right away and positioned my chair next to where they’d deposited their cooler.  For “Low,” “Teen Angst,” and “Euro-Trash Girl”  I joined them at the front of the stage.  Guitar player Johnny Hickman was beyond charismatic and often looked our way and winked.  Marianne was wearing an ETG t-shirt, standing for “Euro-Trash Girl,” and Missy was dancing uninhibitedly during virtually every number.  After the show band members found time to say hey before heading off to a gig at the Hard Rock Café in Pittsburgh.

Marianne: "Our new friend Brian, Cracker bass player"

Dave Serynek sat next to me and another former student, Chris Daly, said hello and remembered Ron Cohen.  When I told Chris I’d seen Cracker about ten times (including at Hobart Jaycee Fest, Valpo’s Popcorn Festival, and  two Cracker Campouts in California), he replied, “You were always into music.”  After I asked him how he spelled his last name, I remembered that he’d written an article published in my “Latinos in the Calumet Region” Shavings (volume 13, 1987).  Titled “Learn from Grandma,” it contained this information:

  Rose, a waitress at John’s Pizzeria in Griffith, was born in the Region.  Her father was born near Mexico City and her mother is from El Paso.  Rose is married and has three children.  “I plan on teaching them Spanish and on bringing them up in a strong family background,”she said.  “What else they pick up, they’ll have to learn from grandma.”

Chris took a selfie of us and sent it to Jeff Walsdorf, asking, “Recognize this dude?  He went walking behind me at the Cracker concert and I caught him out of the corner of my eye.  Went and chased him down.  He told me he’d just been with Dr. Cohen [finalizing plans for a third edition of ‘Gary: A Pictorial History’].”Walsdorf replied: “I was just thinking about Dr. Cohen the other day.”

Our neighbor, semi-retired Roman Catholic priest Father George, has been saying Sunday mass at  Holy Angels Cathedral, whose origins date to 1906, the year of Gary’s birth. The first parishioners were mainly Irish, Italian, German, and Eastern European, while the present congregation is primary African American and Puerto Rican.  The present Gothic Revival house of worship was built during the late 1940s.  George told me he’s been reading up the city’s church history in “Gary’s First Hundred Years.”  

Day of Infamy

“December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Jimbo in the Calumet Regional Archives; Post-Trib photo by Jim Karczewski

It’s always interesting (and sometimes a little scary) to discover what quotes reporters use after interviewing you. Nancy Webster’s front page Post-Trib article on remembering Pearl Harbor on the seventy-fifth anniversary of that momentous event began by noting the dwindling number of survivors –that’s probably why she spoke with me and Gary historian John Trafny rather than World War II vets who had been there.  Trafny told Nancy Webster that his father was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Oahu when Japanese planes attacked. Trafny said, “Steve was on his way to the mess hall — he thought one of the stoves exploded. Then he saw the Rising Sun (the Japanese emblem) on the side of the plane.”  Webster added: “According to the family story, Trafny’s Aunt Veronica wrote a letter to President Roosevelt asking what happened to her brother. The letter was forwarded to the Red Cross and then on to Steve Trafny's colonel, who ordered the young man to sit down in his presence and write his family a letter to let them know he was alive.”

Here are statements of mine that appear in Webster’s piece;

* The interesting thing in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack — the government censored the showing of any images so as not to alarm people to the tremendous extent of the damage to our fleet. A lot was classified.

* Pearl Harbor will continue to be remembered [because] it brought home to Americans that the world is small and had come to a point where we could not be isolated from the world's problems.  It will be a big part of history, even if the celebrations of the veterans continue to tail off.

* [When I visited Hickam Air Force Base in 1965], there were still bullet marks on the buildings that had never been cleaned up. The idea was that it was a reminder to be vigilant, as part of the reason Pearl Harbor happened was because of the lack of vigilance by the military.

* When I was growing up, it was a badge of pride to have a family member in that war.

 Vic, Midge and Jimbo Lane, circa 1943

My parents were both 25 years old and living in Easton, Pennsylvania, on Pearl Harbor Day.  Midge was in her seventh month of pregnancy with me.  Because Vic was a chemist with a job considered vital to the war effort, he was deemed to be more valuable as a civilian than as a soldier.  Still, I believe part of him regretted not going off to war. For some of his friends going off to war was the adventure of their lives.

Don Wallace and Wendy Masters; NWI Times photos by Joyce Russell

The NWI Times cover story, “From Paradise to a War Zone” profiled Don Wallace of Portage, 84, and Wendy Masters of Valparaiso, 78, who were kids living near Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack.  Wallace told reporter Joyce Russell: “I’ll always remember that first plane coming over.  If you had a rock, you could have thrown it and hit it.”  Masters recalled that her parents were convinced the Japanese would land troops and possibly poison the reservoir that provided their drinking water.  Russell also interviewed Lake Station history teacher Tom Clark (a former student of mine), who has on display in his classroom such wartime artifacts as Purple Hearts, servicemen’s letters, and items recovered from the USS Arizona, including spoons and a silver tray. Calling Pearl Harbor “that generation’s 9/11,” Clark described visiting the Battleship Arizona Memorial: “The theater blows you way.  Then you get on a launch to go to the Arizona memorial, which straddles over the ship and a wall with the names of all those killed.  You look at this, and you are just awed.”

 "Ghost Ship" interior before the fire

Dozens of young people perished in a warehouse fire in Oakland, California, located just a few miles from my friends Gaard and Chuck Logan. The property had not been inspected for over a decade.  The building, dubbed the “Ghost Ship” by artists who used it as a work space and crash pad, was a fire trap, with no sprinkler system and very few exits.  Due to the housing shortage and gentrification of former bohemian neighborhoods, warehouse communes have become increasingly common. It evidently was a happening place but a death trap with faulty wiring and other structural deficiencies.  The owner looks to be in serious trouble.  Some 30 years ago I stayed in a West Berlin warehouse with university students, thanks to a professor who knew my friend Sheila Hamanaka.

For a final exam review David Parnell put together a Jeopardy quiz with categories such as Popes and Kings, Places, Name that Crusade, Crusades Terminology, and “Kingdom of Heaven,” the 2005 film.  I pretty much stayed on the sidelines since most students were enthusiastically participating.  Some were extremely competitive, and David was quit adept at his duties as moderator and scorekeeper.   That afternoon none of the Jeopardy contestants knew what month (June) in 1944 D-Day (Operation Overlord) took place.

Mike Olszanski posted a 1986 photo of him with our late lamented poker buddy Fred Gaboury in East Berlin, an old, radical lumberjack.  Mutual friend Connie Mack-Ward wrote:

            Fred and I were at some event, sitting by each other and both smoking. I was holding our ash tray - there was no place to put it down while we were using it. Fred then offered to hold it, and I said, “No, that's OK, I'm fine.” Eager to be a gentleman, Fred crunched my fingers together until they were almost broken and took the ashtray out of my hand. He had no idea he was hurting me, of course.  I always let Fred perform his courtesies after that - I was afraid of being maimed by “The Frozen Logger.”

I picked up opatki packages at Nativity Church in Portage. Toni always sends one to her sister Mary, who has trouble finding it in Punta Gorda, Florida.  In Willard J. Dolman’s “Golden Memories and Silver Tears” (2000) – a nonfiction portrayal of a coal miner’s son growing up in northeastern Pennsylvania during the Great Depression -  is this description of an ethnic Christmas dinner practice:

  Jadek said the prayer before the meal and Babka distributed the opatki, a half sheet of this blessed unleavened bread to each adult and child. No one ate until the opatki ritual was first completed.  In this tradition each person shared his or her opatki with another person by breaking off a tiny piece of the other person’s opatki and saying something like, “I wish you health during the coming year.”

When the Lane household would do it for Wigilia (pronounced valia), a Polish Christmas Eve tradition, we’d exchange kisses as well as good wishes.

Beyoncé’s Lemonade” topped Rolling Stone’s Top 25 album list.  Also honored were the final efforts of David Bowie and Leonard Cohen as well as the Rolling Stones blues album and one by Parquet Court, who I saw live at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, California.  On the singles list was Bob Dylan doing the Johnny Mercer classic “That Old Black magic” from his Frank Sinatra tribute album. The article states: “The only guy this year to release a Frank Sinatra tribute album and win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Dylan pays his respects to the Chairman of the Board, rasping a standard from the Johnny Mercer songbook and yet somehow bringing his own sense of menace to it.”